Are We About to See The MacKenzie Gore Breakout Season?
"We were doing something right here in Whiteville."
The back wall of my office features three blown up Baseball America magazine covers.
The first is a Ronald Acuña Jr. cover with "The Prodigy" as the headline. It was taken back when Acuña Jr. was playing for Triple-A Gwinnett and back when Triple-A Gwinnett had Braves-esque uniforms instead of their current Stripers branding. I think it's one of the cleanest covers we've had in my time at BA.
The second is our 2019 draft preview cover, which featured Oregon State's Adley Rutschman, the consensus top player in the class and eventual 1-1 pick. Like The Prodigy cover, I love this one because I think it's so clean and crisp. I tend to prefer our staged photos on covers more than game shots or action shots for whatever reason.
The third cover on the wall is from our 2017 draft recap issue: "High Stakes" featuring MacKenzie Gore in his Whiteville High uniform in the middle of his patented high leg kick. In the case of this cover, the game shot works perfectly. The way Gore's leg is thrown up over the headline of the magazine, with his hands above his head pushing towards the top of the page—it’s just perfect.
That cover will stick with me for a long time. It came out the same year I started full time at Baseball America. And MacKenzie Gore was one of the first players I went out of my way to see. Our lead draft writer at the time, Hudson Belinsky, sent me out to watch one of Gore's starts that spring against New Bern High.
It wasn't his best start of the year1 and it was also one of just six games Whiteville would lose that season. I remember Gore being upset with how he pitched that night despite me sitting behind the plate amazed at what I was watching. He didn't have his best top-end velocity but was sitting in the low 90s and showing three legit secondaries with strong control despite fighting a wonky mound all game.
Gore would go on that spring to win his third state championship with Whiteville (and third playoff MVP) and be selected third overall by the Padres. He was Baseball America's 2017 High School Player of the Year. In the reporting and writing process for that story I was impressed by Gore's humility, work ethic and team-first mentality. After he earned his third MVP award he gave it away to a teammate. He felt like he was getting too much attention and his teammates not enough. He became an extremely easy player to root for and also likely served as the catalyst for my fondness of the North Carolina prep lefty profile.
Nine years later, I think Gore is still one of the most impressive high school pitchers I've seen in person. It's either him or Georgia righthander Dylan Lesko.
Here's our 2017 MacKenzie Gore draft report, which I believe was written by Hudson, although I’m not positive:
Strikethrowing lefthanders are a hot commodity, and they're even more valuable when they have velocity and the ability to spin a breaking ball. Gore checks all those boxes and more. He's an elite athlete on the mound, where he employs a very high kick and long stride off the rubber. He gets deep extension over his front side with his torso consistently landing over his front knee. As Gore grew taller and stronger entering the spring of his senior year, his stuff took a jump. He pitches at 89-93 and can hit 95 or 96 mph with his fastball, showing the ability to get sink on the pitch or cut it in toward righthanded batters or run it away from them. He throws two distinct breaking balls. Gore's curveball shows plus potential with tight 1-to-7 snap and mid 70s velocity. His slider is also a weapon with more horizontal tilt and more firm velocity, reaching into the low 80s. He flashes feel for his low 80s changeup, which projects as an above-average to plus offering. Gore repeats his unorthodox mechanics well and shows elite control for a high school pitcher. As he gains strength, Gore will look to add stability to his lower half. His mechanics can sometimes give him difficulty getting on top of his curveball, an issue he'll aim to correct with reps in the low minors. Some evaluators believe Gore is the top high school pitching prospect in the class due to his command of a well-rounded arsenal of pitches.
Given all my background and history with Gore as a high school prospect, it was awesome to see him absolutely shove in his first Opening Day start for the Nationals Thursday night.
Six innings, just one hit allowed, no runs, no walks and 13 strikeouts on 93 pitches.
He faced the minimum of 18 batters. He averaged 95-96 mph with his four-seam fastball, showed a new slider shape that looks like a nightmare for lefties, and also showed impressive feel for his curveball, changeup and cutter.
In addition to his unique delivery—which is a bit more subdued compared to his prep days—Gore is so fun to watch pitch because of his locked in, stoic demeanor on the mound. I'm pretty sure the only emotion we saw from him was after his 13th strikeout of the night to end the sixth when he knew his outing was done. Aside from that punchout, he was nonchalant throughout the outing.
The highlight reel from his game is a must-watch:
The last two seasons Gore has been rock solid: 59 starts, 302.2 innings, a 4.13 ERA and 4.14 FIP. He took a step forward from 2023 to 2024. Maybe we're about to see another one in 2025, where he could go from reliable middle-of-the-rotation starter to frontline ace.
Here's what I've been working on this week.
We rolled out our top 300 draft update, the first in-season rankings tweak for the 2025 class. Florida State lefthander Jamie Arnold moves into the top spot.
Along with that ranking update I also wrote about a few of the notable up/down movers and did a deeper dive into the intriguing profile of Tennessee lefthander Liam Doyle.
On the podcast front, Ben Badler and I talked 2025 season predictions on Episode 119 of Future Projection. Peter Flaherty and I talked through the top 300 draft update on the Baseball America draft podcast.
That's it for today. Hope you all get to enjoy some big league baseball this weekend. Thanks for reading and following along.
This was also not the best footage I have ever shot and edited. Young me needed to learn how to cut between pitches in iMovie, clearly.